Squo-whoosh… whoosh-squoosh.

I watched valves flutter in synchrony with the green line coursing and bumping across the bottom of the screen, in awe as I realized that the display was a live rendering of the performance inside my chest. A deep breath to speed the tempo, a pause to slow it down. Thump bumps on one side of a rib, barrump-gumps on the other. The sonographer deftly traced and measured grainy images on the echocardiogram monitor, playing back heart sounds to capture best recordings. 

Many young women hear the sound of a heartbeat on ultrasound and celebrate the miracle of life; I did, too. 

---

She was a little younger than I when she learned of the tiny bubbles growing inside her – swelling and multiplying at a rate measured over decades, compressing and choking healthy kidney tissue. It was a familiar diagnosis: shared with her mother and uncle, passed through bloodlines. For this reason, she forbade her daughters from testing as potential donors, fearful that this genetic scourge had carried on.

I acted in defiance of my mother’s wishes. 

I didn’t feel defiant. I felt helpless. Furious. Curious. I wanted to know the risk. As the facsimile daughter of an accountant, I needed numbers to calculate. I scoured webpages and read articles. I learned that 106,000 Americans are in need of an organ transplant, 92,000 of whom are waiting for a kidney (!). I found out that living kidney donors typically don’t have any longstanding lifestyle restrictions, their remaining kidney miraculously compensating for its lost partner. I discovered that symptoms of polycystic kidney disease (PKD) typically manifest in the third to fourth decade; at 34, I wasn’t out of the woods. 

I emailed the kidney experts and asked if there were tests to rule out PKD. 

“Most of the time, the polycystic cysts are visible by age 30, so we would want to be able to see that you don’t have even tiny ones…we would do an abdominal ultrasound,” responded Jenny, donor transplant coordinator. 

I was scheduled for an abdominal ultrasound within two weeks. It came back clear; no cysts.

Mom prayerfully and graciously acquiesced to my continued pursuit of donor clearance. (Thanks, Mom. ❤️ )

Then we waited.

---

It’s now March 20. The clinic suggested I could expect results within 24-48 hours; 26.5 hours later, I’m pacing. A notification ding, and the now familiar text: “You have a new test result in MyChart”. I scroll and scroll through the radiologist’s report, hoping and praying for unremarkable, normal, within expected limits. 

“Normal left atrial size.”

My heart swells as if in direct opposition to the findings, filling and stretching and growing to fill my throat and twist my stomach. It’s too early to speculate, but I do it anyway. I feel – big feels. Relief. Joy. Fear. Anticipation. Gratitude.

---

I know the donor evaluation team meets on Fridays, and I spend all of Friday morning with my phone in hand. By 2 pm, I’m anxious that I haven’t received a phone call yet, so I check my email – again. 

Approval received to move forward with surgeries on April 23…

I am engulfed by a wave of incomprehensible peace. That for which I have prayed has been granted – the permission to give. What an underrated gift that is.

---

The lesson I’ve learned in a year bookended by ultrasounds?
God is in control. He is sovereign– and I wouldn’t have it any other way. There is nothing I can do to foil His plan; I’m not that powerful. Whatever happens, He’s got it. What peace I find in that!